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Double Bass Current makers, qualities of instruments they make (on topic)

#61
Eric Hochberg said:
Another option is to have the strings changed out for the jazz testing. A few guys with drills should do the trick pretty easily...;)
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That was my suggestion. Seems like they could muster a lackey to change everything to a pizz string for the jazz judge in a few minutes.

For the record, I'm a serious buyer of these instruments and need a bass that can do both. And I changes strings for arco jobs sometimes from their usual pizz string. And yes, most of these basses wouldn't work for jazz, but some might have.

Also, I do think the bass has to match the string, and that's why we shouldn't have everyone using the same thing.
 
#63
GerardSamija said:
Perhaps someone ought to have mentioned something like that to Chuck, as he was quite adamant that for "American style music" his choice was being ignored, his choice being Spirocores.
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I didn't speak with Chuck, but spoke with the organizer of the competition- what's his name- he got the friend of the bass award? He seemed to appreciate the feedback and was glad to know that some of us "American" style players also take our instruments seriously, and have careers that can justify them.
 
#65
Robin Ruscio said:
I didn't speak with Chuck, but spoke with the organizer of the competition- what's his name- he got the friend of the bass award? He seemed to appreciate the feedback and was glad to know that some of us "American" style players also take our instruments seriously, and have careers that can justify them.
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My apologies if I offended you. I only put "American style music" in quotes because it was a direct quote from what Chuck was saying on stage about strings. No intention of denegrating Jazz or anything he was saying at all. I'm just trying to help make sense of this string and setup issue, which seemed to cause a fair bit of difficulty for Chuck's judging of the instruments. It seemed he could have been a lot happier had there been Spirocores on everything, and as he stated a couple or a few times, the other two players would probably have been able to adapt.
 
#66
GerardSamija said:
I'm just trying to help make sense of this string and setup issue, which seemed to cause a fair bit of difficulty for Chuck's judging of the instruments. It seemed he could have been a lot happier had there been Spirocores on everything, and as he stated a couple or a few times, the other two players would probably have been able to adapt.
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I don't remember him specifically saying Spirocores, and the first bass by A Reilly had Evahs, I think, and sounded good pizz. It isn't really about Chuck being happy per se, but about being able to hear the way the basses sound in a jazz context, which requires the proper strings. Most of them didn't sound particularly good for jazz, where as with the proper strings, they would have fared better.
 
#67
Oops, guess full disclosure is in order; I've set up a couple of Chuck's basses over the past couple of years, fingerboard shaping and post adjustments and such. Guess I transposed what I know of his own basses onto what he was saying, and substantiated it without thinking when he broke into a big smile at the only bass with Spirocores on it... and said something to the effect of 'now this is the only bass where I can really hear what it sounds like without having to guess' or similar. He's moved down to Portland. Perhaps Seth will be doing his setups now?
 
#68
GerardSamija said:
My apologies if I offended you. I only put "American style music" in quotes because it was a direct quote from what Chuck was saying on stage about strings. No intention of denegrating Jazz or anything he was saying at all. I'm just trying to help make sense of this string and setup issue, which seemed to cause a fair bit of difficulty for Chuck's judging of the instruments. It seemed he could have been a lot happier had there been Spirocores on everything, and as he stated a couple or a few times, the other two players would probably have been able to adapt.
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No offense at all, eh?;) This only works if we agree that "America" includes the entire continental system and not just the U.S.A., as my rather sociocentric patriots sometimes us the term.
 
#69
The bass I made for the competition had Evah Weich's on it...same strings as my 09 bass in fact. I wanted the bass to be judged for it's own merits (jazz, orch and solo) and not the strings...so I dyed the silk wraps black. That actually backfired! One of the judges asked on stage about them and then when I talked to him later i was told because they couldn't tell what the strings were...they couldn't adapt given the amount of time they had to evaluate each bass and hear the bass. O'well...lesson learned!

Something brought up to me was how much all the basses changed and opened up after the general admission got to play them (something the tone judges said to on stage), and maybe the public should view and play them first Monday (after workmanship judging on Sunday night) and then the tone judges evaluate them Tuesday when they have all been played in a bit. Interesting idea...
 
#70
The general public going first would in my case have meant a big horizontal scrape into the upper back before the judges got hold of the bass. Okay, sure, they might say they wouldn't look at that critically... but it's such a nasty scrape from those awful stands. I'm about halfway through retouching it. It's gonna leave a scar. Subtle, but there, bugging me. sigh. Good thought though. The more players warming up new basses the better. Some of the comments I've had from local musicians testing mine here at home and in a couple of halls have been suggesting it wants more playing-in. I try, but not being a bassist (I torture a 'cello now and then when there's time, a copy of the 'Servais' Stradivari of 1701 which I finished in '93) it's difficult to really get into it. I get hung up in the left hand, forget to bow hard.

Yeah, I remember those black strings. Didn't someone suggest they were experimental? Or perhaps those were some other set. Seems odd they'd have been stumped by Evahs. Just play a bit and figure out how to play the strings at hand, no? Similar to the Eb thumb stop on my bass neck. As guys around here have said to me - Ken Lister was the latest just this week - it's just a matter of finding where D is, grasping what that means for the bass in hand, then working with it. He seemed not to have any issues with intonation above the thumb stop at all, so I'd asked him about it afterwards, and that's what he told me he teaches at his university. Learn it and move on, not a big deal, even if one's used to D necks. But I guess my local crowd is more forgiving.
 
#71
At the risk of creating undue controversy, I want to raise a serious reason why the makers' competition caters primarily to classical players, and why the basses are generally strung accordingly. Most jazz/pizzicato players do not generally put the kind of money into a new bass that classical players must. Take a roomful of 24 basses valued at $20,000 to $50,000, and the odds are that possibly one or two may end up sold to a bassist who plays primarily pizzicato. This is a harsh reality of marketing fine instruments these days, and, being an old jazzer, I'm not saying I like it. Also, the makeup of these ISB shindigs heavily favors the classical folks, and the makers are looking for positive results not only from the judges, but from the potential buyers among the membership.
 
#72
Bingo Arnold, hit that nail right on the head, and I think it'd be a bit silly for anyone to quibble on that point. That was my reasoning on string choice, owing to my experience here in Vancouver the week before with the arco players (some seriously shopping around, only one pizz player seriously doing the same and in a slightly lower-priced range) who had difficulty telling what the instrument sounded like with Spirocores on. I knew there would be two arco judges, one pizz, and I knew Chuck wasn't going to be much interested in my small bass, as he's a big-bass kind of a guy. So I opted for the obvious string... and as it happened, so did about 20 other makers, all choosing Belcanto.

I see the average jazz bassist getting serious about a good instrument and spending around $10,000, maybe. Some go a bit higher. Rare jazz players go over 20. Orchestral bassists START looking at around $20,000. Not because they're rich, but the requirements are different and there's no amplification option, which is I think the most critical factor for many.
 
#73
Christian is awesome, as are his basses! It doesn't help that dollar is way down, for those of y'all living in the States. What about other European makers: Krattenmacher? Also heard of some new Italian luthier that seem promising, unfortunately don't remember their names. 21,000 euros is a pretty great price for a bass, incidentally.
 
#74
Arnold is undoubtably right. So, in the judging, did Chuck Israels give most of the basses poor pizzicato marks? How would that have affected the final scores? Or is it even taken into consideration? I'm not expecting anyone here to have the answer...
I say, that if the ISB is going to have a pizz judge, and a well known jazz player at that, the makers should do their best to accomodate the genre, as they do with the arco demonstrations. If that means a compromise in strings, or changing strings, so be it. I don't believe Evahs, or Obligatos would kill the arco demonstrations just because Bels happen to be the flavor of the month.
 
#75
Eric Hochberg said:
Arnold is undoubtably right. So, in the judging, did Chuck Israels give most of the basses poor pizzicato marks? How would that have affected the final scores? Or is it even taken into consideration? I'm not expecting anyone here to have the answer...
I say, that if the ISB is going to have a pizz judge, and a well known jazz player at that, the makers should do their best to accomodate the genre, as they do with the arco demonstrations. If that means a compromise in strings, or changing strings, so be it. I don't believe Evahs, or Obligatos would kill the arco demonstrations just because Bels happen to be the flavor of the month.
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The economics of catering to classical players is right on, no disputing that here. I'm not sure I agree with people who think a good bass arco will necessarily work for jazz- it takes a certain kind of instrument to do both, though I can appreciate that few luth's are going to be shooting for a jazz sound when a high end bass will likely only be sold to a classical player.

Still, it seems like they could consider doing what inevitably happens for me when I look at basses- they could change the strings for the jazz judge. Obviously, they care enough about us jazzers to invite someone to the evaluation. It's not that hard to change strings- if they had an assistant doing it for the judges all day.

Or perhaps the basses should be judged for tone only on the merits of their arco sound? It would be a more accurate representation of what is being evaluated.

No easy solutions here.
 
#77
Again Arnold makes an excellent point. With more basses than not, I'm able get the fingerboard slightly flatter for a Spirocore player, where for something like Belcantos or Dominants or any of the other strings favoured by arco players (Heritage, Olive, etc.) there's usually a need to go a bit deeper in the end-to-end concavity, as well as raising the action a bit for most orchestral players so they're not bottoming out at triple forte. Now with an adjustable neck, such as my bass and a few others offer, a simple turn of an allen key can accomodate the latter... but fingerboards are not, so far, adjustable. Perhaps one day some CF manufacturing genius will make such a board, as there are adjustable bows already. Until then, our setups are usually highly tailored to a specific approach to the instrument, with the more experienced players often becoming very demanding indeed about a particular feel.

But again, on the string swap idea I'm all there, agreeing that if there are to be both sorts of judges for a single sort of bass that would be at least a partial solution. Chuck was complaining, at length, about most of the basses being strung with the 'string of the day' as he also put it in his opening remarks. As to how this might have affected the judging that's anyone's guess.
 
#78
arnoldschnitzer said:
I set up a fingerboard differently for Spiros and the like. If one were to just change strings, the result could be crappy.
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Good point. I forgot about that aspect. My own board/bass is so setup for what I do that I forget how different it might look for an orchestra player.

I think what's apparent to me is that for all the critiques of the competition from buyers, judges, and luthiers, there is no simple answer to evaluating the instruments for all players and all styles of music.

I should disclose that after looking at all the basses in the competition, the bass that I found that best my own needs wasn't one of them! Though of course the whole competition process deeply informed my decision in ways I can't begin to explain. It was such a valuable learning experience. Anyone who reads this thread in the next months should plan on going to the next ISB and seeing this for themselves. They will come away with a much better understanding of how hard it is to make a great bass, how many different approaches there, and really, why new basses are truly priced fairly for what goes into them. I'm so much more appreciative of a good bass and the people who make them than ever!
 
#79
Excellent thoughts Robin. I'd been somewhat dismayed by that other version of this thread, when people were suggesting luthiers ought to charge so much less for new basses unless they had HUGE reputations. Got more than a little off topic there, sorry about that, but it's stuff I feel quite passionately about. As a setup and repair guy I get a lot of criticism from bassists and other fiddlers for not charging nearly enough. Some have become quite sharp-tongued about it, suggesting that if I don't start charging more I might not be able to keep it up and that would harm the musical community. I try... and yet this month's end find myself again short on cash to pay the bills. Must try harder. So when it comes up that some find my asking price for a bass much too high, and I'm actually asking about 1/2 my normal labour rate for what went into it, well, it stings just a little. Making basses is not a great way to get rich.

On my site I put up a page about my experiences at the ISB in SF. Got to add some more video to that... just need to spend some time compressing those to suitable scale first. But on there I recommended attending very highly for any bassist. I think it's an awesome event, rich in learning experiences for anyone interested in the instrument from any perspective. Sure, there are always things which could improve, but that's quibbling really. The whole thing is amazing.
 
#80
Hi guys. I've just left Cincinnati and have some impressions about the basses I played.

First off, Nick Lloyd and the guys at the Bass Cellar are stand up, quality individuals who just so happen to be some of the best modern makers there are.

Nick Lloyds' 7/8 Walnut was my favorite bass I played. As others have said most all these basses have tone and depth so it's mostly about personal nuance. Nicks bass played like butter for me but the arco response was good but not absolutely great. It was very even and the g string wasnt bright or nasal. A really good bass, and my favorite so far in my search.

Bill Lakeburgs bass was also a beast. The tone was massive with great response, but it didn't sit as well under my fingers. An orchestral beast with great depth.

Chris Roberts newest bass is also good, but seemed less present than the others though it was easy to play. Also something about the varnish looked strange to me but I didn't ask.

I played an Anton Krutz gamba that was a great deal. It had a big tone (actually very similar to Bills) fit with an extension and at a fantastic price. It was less easy to play than I would like but for someone looking for a deal without sacrificing literally any sound then that's your bass...come to think of it, I'm not sure why I didn't buy it! Nevermind what I said, it's terrible.

I'm heading out to Robertson's next week and I'll post some thoughts then as well. Bass is beautiful!
 

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